International Journal of Research in Social Sciences Vol. 7 Issue 12, December 2017, ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 Journal Homepage: http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] Double-Blind Peer Reviewed Refereed Open Access International Journal - Included in the International Serial Directories Indexed & Listed at: Ulrich's Periodicals Directory ©, U.S.A., Open J-Gage as well as in Cabell‟s Directories of Publishing Opportunities, U.S.A SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MAHABALESHWAR AND JAOLI TAHSIL OF SATARA DISTRICT MAHARASHTRA STATE INDIA Dr. Rajendra S. Suryawanshi* Mr. Jitendra M. Godase** Abstract: The evaluation of economic development for small area is quite important as there has been a growing consensus about the need of micro level planning in the country. Knowledge of the status of development at micro level will help in identifying where a given area stands in relation to others. The study area Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsil located in Sahyadri mountain ranges in north-west side of Satara district. The present study deals with the transformed villages, evaluation of the infrastructural facilities and level of socio-economic developments at village level in Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli Tahsil. A composite index of development has been formulated based on various physical, demographic, social and economic variables. All the selected variables are converted in to a common base indexing and finally they are converted in to a single index of overall development. The lowest composite score indicates less development and highest composite score indicates high development. Since last 50 years there are no tahsil boundary changed but in 2011 censes 55 villages transferred from Jaoli to Mahabaleshwar tahsil. This villages mainly the part of Kandat valley also known as third world of Satara district. This villages shows low (Score 21-27) to very low (score 28-31) status of development because rugged topography, lack of transportation facility, health, education, communication, banking facility. The northeast and east plain region with better physical conditions, irrigated part of * Professor, Department of Geography, MES Abasaheb Garware College, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune Maharashtra, India ** Ph.D Research student, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, Maharashtra, India 322 International Journal of Research in Social Sciences http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 Kudali river of Jaoli tahsil and shadow villages of tourism places in Mahabaleshwar tahsil are favoured the growth of infrastructural facilities. This part shows high (score 37-40) to very high (score 41-54) level of development. If the socio-economic development of these tahsils modelled along human development framework, it can provide better understanding of development and its impact on quality of life of people. Keywords: socio-economic, level of development, composite index, GIS application 1. Introduction: Development is defined in terms of technological or industrial development, but development of rural people means raising the standard of their living Singh (2003). Rostow (1960) presents a political theory as well as descriptive economic study of the pattern of growth and development of Nations. An extensive study has been made by Rao (1983), having used thirty years of data from 1950-1980 to observe the change in the Indian economy. The Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics conducted a series of research studies in the direction of level of development at state level for the year 1971-72 and 1981-82. Thereafter a deeper analysis using the district level data on socio-economic indicators was made for the States like Orissa- Narain (1992-93), Maharashtra- Narain (1996). In 1980 Narottam Shah, a Member of the State Planning Board, published a report on the "Levels of Development of Districts in Maharashtra". In (1992), Seeta Prabhu and P. C. Sarker published their research paper on "Identification of Levels of Development of the Districts in Maharashtra" In 1983, the Government of Maharashtra appointed a "Fact Finding Committee on Regional Imbalance in Maharashtra", under the Chairmanship of the eminent economist Prof. V.M. Dandekar. In 1997, the Government of India had appointed a Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. E.A.S. Sarma to identify "100 Poorest Districts" in India. In July (2007), M. H. Suryanarayana, has published (2009) a paper on "Intra-State Economic Disparities: Karnataka and Maharashtra". The research studies of Das, (2002); Dholakia, (2003); have been reviewed. Wishlade and Douglas Y. (1997) have described and explained the types of disparities i.e. physical disparities, economic disparities and social disparities. Ziari (2006) also computed 323 International Journal of Research in Social Sciences http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 the level of development of Iran based on natural index, socio-economic index and composite index. All these studies that over the last five decades the micro level study i.e. village level study done by Suryawanshi and Sawant (2011). He has studied the regional disparities of Thane District and in 2013 micro level detailing of Talasari and Dahanu tehsils of Thane district. He also studied level of development in Jawahar, Mokhada, Vikramgad and Vada tahsil of rural Thane district, Suryawanshi (2014) Economic planning has been used in the country as an instrument for bringing about uniform regional development because main objectives of the developmental programmes has been a progressive reduction in regional disparities in the pace of development. The very important developmental issues in India today include development of human resource, distributive justice and regional disparities in development. The development of different sectors of economy should be in proper direction because it improves the economy of the area and also enhances the level of living of people. The Satara district is a rugged country stretching about 100 kms from North to South with a considerable regularity in height and presents a panoramic view all around with truncated hill ranges separated by the deep valleys descending to the plains. The district has three natural sub- divisions based on the topographic situations - Hilly area in the west, plains of the Krishna river in the central part, and the plateau area in the east. Mahabaleshwar is the highest place in the district and is located at a height of 1466 m above mean sea level. Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli Tahsil located in hilly areas in the west The Sahyadri (western) range in the extreme west, and the spurs of the Sahyadris chiefly stretching east and south-east. The western or Sahyadri belt includes the hole part of Mahabaleshwar and western parts of Jaoli 2. Study Area: Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsils are located in north-western part of Satara district. It is surrounded by Wai tahsil to the north, Satara tahsil to the east, Patan tahsil to the south and Ratnagiri District to the west. Raigad district lies to its north-west. As per 2011 censes 324 International Journal of Research in Social Sciences http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsil covers an area of 50337.4 hectares and 58707.2 hectares respectively. Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsils consists of 111 villages and 161 villages respectively. At Mahabaleshwar, the mean daily maximum temperature in December is only 28.100 C and the mean daily minimum is 13.600 C. The South-west monsoon is the main source of rainfall. The Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsils receives average annual rainfall up to 6200 mm and 5000 mm respectively. The total population of Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsil is 44543 and 101828 as per 2011 censes. The tahsil headquarter of Mahabaleshwar is Kshetra Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli is Madha. The physiography of the study region is typical and interesting because the tahsil is located in the Sahyadri mountain ranges. Maximum area of Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsils is mainly covered by the Sahyadris major spurs. The average gradient varies from 30 m to 50 m per kilometre. The top of Mahabaleshwar, the highest point in the district is about 1436 metres from mean sea level Most of the area is under thick forest cover. Most of the villages have foothill location and have strategic importance. (figure 1) 325 International Journal of Research in Social Sciences http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 Location Map of the Study Area Figure No. 1 326 International Journal of Research in Social Sciences http://www.ijmra.us, Email: [email protected] ISSN: 2249-2496 Impact Factor: 7.081 3. Objectives: To identify the socio-economic development in rural Mahabaleshwar and Jaoli tahsil 4. Database and Methodology: The entire research work is based on the secondary data. Census data (Village directory) has been used for preparing village or tahsil boundary of the study area. Besides these, many reports and government publications viz. Gazetteer, Socio-economic Abstracts, periodicals have been also extensively used. Topographical maps 47G/9, 47G/10, 47G/13, 47G/14 at the scale 1:50000 have been used to evaluate the village locations. These village locations have been digitised using GIS software and subsequent GIS platform used. The village polygons for 272 villages were used as the areal units. The vector based GIS technique like Arc GIS, Global Mapper, has been used for analysis of information and presentation of maps, for this the village boundary map of the tahsil has been digitized (Census-2011) The composite Index has been prepared as per 2011 census for all the physical, demographic, social and economic variables by denoting score of 1-5. Based on the variable supporting socio- economic development of the population, the lowest score indicates less development and highest score indicates high development. This has enabled to analyze the regional disparity lucidly (Suryawanshi and Sawant, 2013). Indicators of Level of Development: The following indicators have been chosen: Physical factors: (a) Relative relief (b) Slope (c) Forest Cover.